


Forever After

by karrenia_rune



Category: Florence + the Machine, Native American/First Nations Mythology, The Incas, What the Water Gave Me - Florence + the Machine (Song)
Genre: Fic or Treat Meme, Gen, Gift Work, Inspired by Music, Mythology - Freeform, South America
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of their world turned upside down by invasion of foregin soldiers  who have tricked and murdered the last Incan Emperor: a prince way down the line of succession confides in his mentor and prepares for the old mans's  death rites.  As the law stands what comes from the water must one day return to it. Inspired by Florence and the Machine's "What the Water gave Me"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eida/gifts).



"Forever After" 

"The sheer unfairness of it all. Gods' teeth!" He swore and then sighed, wiping the sleeve of his garment past his eyes. The garment came away only a little damp.

"If you could only see him as I see. He is like an aged lion surrounded by hyenas," the prince exclaimed, his dove-gray traced with a subtle red design of his house, perching on a wooden supply chest.\

"You ask an excellent question, my liege," the apothecary replied, trying to pitch his voice as low as possible yet not so low so as he would not be heard by the sorrowful young man who had come to his chambers. These days it was a quite common practice for the highest to the lowest to employ their energies with spying upon one another. 

"But there are some things that are not to be trifled with by such as I." He sighed. And one of those is the passing of an empire."

"I am not asking to interfere with that! Only for something to make the old man's last days more comfortable."

The old man, his wispy white beard rather bedraggled, a common state, made even more so by the tension of the past few months, was taken up in his hands as he came over to stand beside the young man. 

"I love him too, we all do, I suppose, in our way, but the law of the land has been the same from generation to generation."

"Please, Heiro," sighed, "Please do not quote the Law to me, I do not think I can bear up at this moment."

"The law states, that there must be a sacrifice, just as man is composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire, spirit, and more importantly for our purposes, water."

"And so when the King dies he must be given back to the element from whence he came."

"Hatak, every boy, and girl child hears that legend from the first moment to the last, how Mano Tupac and his royal consort emerged from the sacred lake, appointed by our Sun God, to be the emperor and empress and from them we are all descended in more or less direct line." Heiro bunched his hands into a fist.

"Perhaps we would not being having this conversation had not the white devils come from afar and killed, burned and plundered to their heart's content."

"Our people thought that these were; gods' of a sort, those spoken of in the more obscure legends." They were strange, unlike anything we had ever seen before; we strode from end to end of this far-flung Empire of ours.'

"Now we know better," In fact, if I am not mistaken was it not the Emperor's own brother who made compact with Pizzaro?" the old man said, perhaps aware, perhaps not that by uttering these words he might be inflicting an unseen wound upon the young man that had once been his pupil and now had become a friend. 'Strange how things work out," he thought and shoved the thought into a back corner of his mind.

"I know, I know, Damn his eyes!" If I had been there, If I could have stopped it from happening." Heiro stood up abruptly and a hand went rapidly to the sheathed sword that jutted out from the sword belt worn around his hips.

"There was nothing you could have down, my liege, the old man soothed, adding' My friend, you were too far away had you had but an inkling of the conspiracy."

"Ah, my head, it is pounding. Perhaps you are correct, old friend. Do you have something soothing you could concoct for me?"

"You had your duty, with the army protecting its people." Your folks would have been proud of you!" Hatak replied as he glanced around the cluttered work table and came up with a wet rag dipped in the powdered form of an aloe leaf.

"Hatak-" Heiro said in a more composed tone once he had applied this to his temples. "Do you think I care, at this late hour, what my folks think of me? They have been dead and gone for some while now."

At that moment the sound of running booted footsteps sounded from without the old apothecary's door and both men, old and young, stopped what they were doing and stood up in alarm. 

Then the running came to a halt in front of the door and voices were heard murmuring, "Come, do it. He must be informed."

"Very well," another calmer, softer voice replied.

Heiro squared his shoulders and approached the door, threw back the bolts and his presence in the threshold startled the young soldier who had been in the act of raising a fist to knock upon the wooden portal.  
"My liege, Oh, my good lord," the young soldier exclaimed. "

"Out with it, Man!" the young prince ordered. "Is it my grandfather?"

"The word is, your grandfather is no more." The priests have taken him to the House of Repose in order to begin the preparations for taking him back to the sacred lake."

"You've done well," the prince forced himself to remain calm and maintain his steady composure, but inside he could almost see those hungry baying creatures sulking all around in his mind's eye.

"I must go. You've done well, Pallu, to bring this news to me as soon as possible. It is none of it happy, but only a fool wishes only happy news in these troubled times and I try not to be a fool."

"I, thank you, my Lord. I, I think I understand," the soldier said.

"Go, there will be nothing further required of you this evening."

++< The procession wound and wound the zig-zagging slopes of the hills and valleys led by the prince now heir apparent and a company of his own regiment. Mano Tupac was at last taken to Lake Titicaca take on a majestic golden litter borne by fifty attendants. 

The musicians and artisans had outdone themselves in adoring both the body on the bier in robes of golden and black silk and the jewels that had anyone bothered to think too much of it, had once lined an entire chamber in the hopes that it would appease the greed of an alien plunderer.

"No matter, " the prince thought, "It is over, and now the old Emperor is dead, long live the new one."

In the privacy of his own thoughts, Hiero considered certain immutable facts of his people's life and death. '"The Gods are good; they give us everything in this life, the air we breathe, the fire we use to light our days, cook our meals, warm our homes in the winter, Earth to build and erect temples in their own. But they can also be cruel; they give with one hand and take with another."

". First my father, my mother, Amaru, then my little sister Ananke, now my grandfather." He hummed the anthem in not too off-key pitch along with his people.

_"‘Cause they took your loved ones_  
But returned them in exchange for you  
But would you have it any other way?  
Would you have it any other way?  
You couldn't have it any other way 

_‘Cause she’s a cruel mistress_  
And a bargain must be made  
But oh, my love, don’t forget me  
When I let the water take me."" >

_"Mano Tupac, You will be missed," he said aloud._

_"He will indeed," the old apothecary murrmured."_


End file.
